Digital teknik har blivit en stor del av våra liv och har lett till omfattande förändringar på alla nivåer i samhället. Sverige är ett av världens mest utvecklade länder inom digital teknik och vi ser att det har haft sin inverkan på människors dagliga arbetsliv, vilket också inkluderar lärare inom skolan på alla nivåer. Huvudsyftet med studien är att undersöka hur svenska högskolelärare inom informatik upplever sin användning av digital teknik som de omges av på sin arbetsplats, vilket inbegriper hur de påverkar och påverkas av den digitala teknik som de använder. En kvalitativ forskningsansats användes för att svara på studiens fråga och metoden bestod av enskilda semistrukturerade intervjuer. I studien framgick det att svenska högskolelärare inom informatik kan uppleva sin användning av digital teknik som både besvärlig och bra. I de flesta fall kan de inte påverka den digitala tekniken i någon större utsträckning när det gäller dess utformning eller inköp, då system som administrationssystem och lärplattform införs via offentliga upphandlingar utan deras delaktighet. Det förekommer en tro om att högskolans digitalisering i framtiden kommer innebära att det underlättar deras administrativa arbete, men det råder ingen fullständig konsensus om att den digitala tekniken redan nu underlättar det på ett optimalt sätt. / Digital technology has become a big part of our lives and has led to extensive changes at all levels of society. With Sweden being one of the world's most technology evolved countries we see that technology has even set its roots within people's daily working lives, which also includes schoolteachers on all levels. The main purpose of the study is to investigate how Swedish university teachers in informatics experience their use with digital technology of which they are surrounded by at their workplace, which includes how they affect and are affected by the digital technology they use. A qualitative research approach was used to answer the study's question and the method consisted of individual semi-structured interviews. In the study, it emerged that Swedish university teachers in informatics experience their use of digital technology as both negative and positive. In most cases, they cannot influence the digital technology to any great extent in terms of its design or purchase, as systems such as administration systems and learning management platforms are introduced through public procurement without their participation. There is a belief that the university's digitization in the future will mean that it facilitates their administrative work, but there is no complete consensus that digital technology already facilitates it in an optimal way.

<p>Open and flexible learning can offer the prospective student a smorgasbord of possible learning activities. This study will investigate if this form of education really suits all students through an examination of relevant factors such as learning process expectations, attendance motives, study approaches (Biggs SPQ), communication initiative, expectation-based study and, finally, background variables such as socioeconomic status. Are there any variables that correlate positive to academic performance? If so, what are these variables and which are most important? This case study is an analysis of academic success involving 174 students in a business administration course in higher education.</p><p>Open and flexible learning is an approach in which distance education and campus mode converge. The emphasis shift is to the individual student’s needs and preferences, which enables students to choose there own learning paths and thus stimulates active and independent learning. The goal is to enable more effective management of learning by the learner. Open and flexible learning is often mentioned as a way to access higher education for non-traditional students. There is a large body of research, with a wide variety of theoretical frameworks and models, that try to explain, describe or predict students’ success. The research points to the fact that there is no one simple explanation or solution to help students towards degree completion or fulfilment of their goals.</p><p>A statistical correlation analysis is conducted in this study and a binary logistic regression is used to construct three models of the most important variables. The first model is based on data about the students that is known before a course starts. The second model includes variables that could be collected at the course start. The third model includes variables that could be collected when the students have attended the course. The result shows that the most important variable for academic success in the course is an achievement-oriented approach to learning. The second most important variable is expectation of the learning process as an individual activity. Other variables such as socioeconomic status and other background variables have less impact. The possibility to predict the academic success is 81 % and the third model explains 46-64 % of the variance of the academic outcome. The conclusion in this study is that the non-traditional students in the Business Administration course receives equal to, if not better results as the other students.</p>

Open and flexible learning can offer the prospective student a smorgasbord of possible learning activities. This study will investigate if this form of education really suits all students through an examination of relevant factors such as learning process expectations, attendance motives, study approaches (Biggs SPQ), communication initiative, expectation-based study and, finally, background variables such as socioeconomic status. Are there any variables that correlate positive to academic performance? If so, what are these variables and which are most important? This case study is an analysis of academic success involving 174 students in a business administration course in higher education. Open and flexible learning is an approach in which distance education and campus mode converge. The emphasis shift is to the individual student’s needs and preferences, which enables students to choose there own learning paths and thus stimulates active and independent learning. The goal is to enable more effective management of learning by the learner. Open and flexible learning is often mentioned as a way to access higher education for non-traditional students. There is a large body of research, with a wide variety of theoretical frameworks and models, that try to explain, describe or predict students’ success. The research points to the fact that there is no one simple explanation or solution to help students towards degree completion or fulfilment of their goals. A statistical correlation analysis is conducted in this study and a binary logistic regression is used to construct three models of the most important variables. The first model is based on data about the students that is known before a course starts. The second model includes variables that could be collected at the course start. The third model includes variables that could be collected when the students have attended the course. The result shows that the most important variable for academic success in the course is an achievement-oriented approach to learning. The second most important variable is expectation of the learning process as an individual activity. Other variables such as socioeconomic status and other background variables have less impact. The possibility to predict the academic success is 81 % and the third model explains 46-64 % of the variance of the academic outcome. The conclusion in this study is that the non-traditional students in the Business Administration course receives equal to, if not better results as the other students.

The overarching aim of the present thesis is to gain knowledge about how Rwandan university students understand and practice group-based learning. Specifically, this research takes a social constructivist perspective when examining how second year students within the area of Modern Languages reflect on collaborative writing and peer assessment as means to promote academic writing and active learning. Four studies make up this research. Thus, Study I examines how students carry out self-directed group work in writing. Study II investigates how instructor-guided writing groups can help promote students’ collaborative learning. Study III explores in what ways process writing as instruction method can help develop students’ academic writing abilities and Study IV focuses on how students experience peer assessment and peer feedback on group writing. The data, which are qualitative, were collected by means of interviews carried out with groups of students. The findings show that students perceive and conduct group-based learning in different ways, which can impact the quality of their learning. Also, based on initial support and guidance from the course instructor, most students acknowledged having been able to take stock of their common writing abilities and understand in what ways peer assessment and peer feedback can help them improve, and thus enrich their learning. A few students considered the common writing process time consuming though. In conclusion, some strategies are suggested to further improve group-based learning. / Det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling är att söka kunskap om hur universitetsstudenter i Rwanda förstår och praktiserar gruppbaserat lärande. Teoretiskt utgår den från ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv med särskilt fokus riktat mot hur studenter inom ämnesområdet moderna språk reflekterar över kollaborativt skrivande och inbördes bedömning som ett sätt att främja akademiskt skrivande och aktivt lärande. Avhandlingen består av fyra studier. I studie I undersöks studenters reflektioner över hur deras självstyrda skrivande i grupp genomförs. Studie II belyser lärarens roll i lärarlett skrivande i grupp och hur det kan påverka studenters kollaborativa lärande. I studie III studeras på vilket sätt metoder som synliggör skrivprocessen kan stödja studenters utveckling inom akademiskt skrivande. Studie IV fokuserar hur studenter erfar inbördes bedömning av skrivande i grupp. Data består av kvalitativa intervjuer genomförda med grupper av studenter under deras andra högskoleår Resultaten visar att studenterna uppfattar och genomför gruppbaserat lärande på olika sätt vilket kan påverka kvaliteten på deras lärande. Givet ett initialt stöd och vägledning från läraren som grund, bekräftade de flesta studenterna att de i grupparbetet kunde utnyttja sin gemensamma skrivförmåga och förstå på vilket sätt inbördes utvärdering kan hjälpa dem att förbättra sitt skrivande och därmed berika deras lärande. Vissa ansåg dock att den gemensamma skrivprocessen var tidsödande. Avslutningsvis föreslås strategier som kan användas för att ytterligare förbättra ett gruppbaserat lärande.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyse online teaching practices in the Swedish higher education context. The study had an online ethnographic approach and was based on empirical data on the teaching in two university courses. The study rested primarily on observational data but interviews and available documents also formed the basis for analysis. Empirical data were analysed with a perspective of practice theory – a perspective within a sociomaterial account. The results showed that online teaching was characterised by an embodied sociomaterial practice. The teacher’s body could be understood as both multiple and closely interwoven with technology. Furthermore, the teacher’s body was used in the teaching situation to reduce technological complexity but also, along with other forms of materiality, to prefigure what kind of teaching would take place. Teacher interventions in online environments could furthermore be understood as relational to both technology (that is the virtual material arrangement) and teachers’ doings and sayings (that is the teaching practice). Teacher interventions were aimed at making the arrangement intelligible for the students. The study showed that teacher interventions arranged both students and information and communication technology (ICT) in order to make them work as a teaching practice. The teaching practice that emerged was characterised as an interplay between virtual materiality and social practice, where asymmetricrelations between teachers and the ICT prevailed. / Syftet med föreliggande studie var att beskriva och analysera undervisningspraktiker online i svensk högre utbildningskontext. Studien har en onlineetnografisk ansats och baseras på empiriska data av undervisningen i två kurser på universitetsnivå. Studien stödjer sig främst på observationsdata men även intervjuer och dokumentstudier ligger som grund för analysen. Empiriska data har analyserats med ett praktikteoretiskt perspektiv – ett perspektiv inom sociomateriell teoribildning. Resultatet visar att undervisning online kännetecknas av en förkroppsligad sociomateriell praktik. Lärarkroppen kan förstås som både multipel och tätt sammanvävd med teknologi. Vidare används lärarkroppen i undervisningssituationen för att reducera komplexitet men även för att, tillsammans med annan materialitet, prefigurera vad det är för typ av undervisning som kommer att utspela sig. Vidare kan lärarinterventioner i onlinemiljöer förstås som relationella till både tekniken (det vill säga det virtuellt materiella arrangemanget) och lärares göranden och säganden (det vill säga undervisningspraktiken). Lärarinterventioner syftar till att göra arrangemanget begripligt för studenterna. Studien visar att lärarinterventionerna arrangerar både studenter och informations- och kommunikationsteknologi (IKT) i syfte att få dem att fungera som en undervisningspraktik. Den undervisningspraktik som uppstår är inte given på förhand utan emergent. Den karaktäriseras av ett samspel mellan virtuell materialitet och social praktik där asymmetriska relationer mellan lärare och IKT råder.

Fokus i denna avhandling utgör läkares och civilingenjörers kunskaps- och identifikationsprocesser under utbildning och arbete – vilka studeras som utsnitt ur levnadsbanor. Syftet är att beskriva och tolka relationen mellan högre utbildning och arbete, dels utifrån föreställningar i forskning och policy, dels utifrån människors subjektivitet, vardagserfarenheter och liv. Studien baseras på textanalys och intervjuer med läkare och IT-ingenjörer under de första åren i arbetslivet och yrket. Kännetecknande är att processer följs över tid genom en longitudinell design. Den teoretiska ramen struktureras runt tre länkade teman: Kunskap och dynamiker i det samtida samhället; Högre utbildning och arbete; Människors formbarhet. Reflexiv tolkning utgör metodologisk ansats. Begreppen flexibilitet, stabilitet och ambivalens används dialektiskt vid analys av empiriska data. Avhandlingen visar att människors subjektivitet och vardagserfarenheter samspelar med generella föreställningar och sammanhangens reella förhållanden. Utbildnings- och yrkesval kan förstås som uttryck för såväl reflexiva livsprojekt som subjektiva dynamiker. Att formas till civilingenjör och läkare ter sig på vitt skilda sätt. Ingenjörerna formas till generalister och ”spelar med säkra kort” medan läkarna bygger en karaktär och ”spelar med sig själva som insats”. I arbetet använder civilingenjörerna titeln som en flexibel strategi – identifikation är främst bunden till plats, funktion och arbetstid. Läkarnas identifikation med yrket utgör ett konstant tillstånd – läkare är något de alltid är, också på fritiden – yrket är starkt bundet till person. Resultaten indikerar att både ingenjörs- och läkaryrket kännetecknas av livslånga kvalificeringsprocesser. De visar sig stark exkluderande över tid. Relationen mellan högre utbildning och arbetet diskuteras vidare i avhandlingen genom människors levnadsbanor och i termer av såväl formbara som hållbara liv. / The focus of this thesis is the formation of knowledge and professional identification through physicians’ and engineers’ education and work – life-trajectories are the frame of interpretation. The aim is to describe and interpret the relationship between higher education and work, partly by studying ideas in research and educational policy, partly by people’s subjectivity, experiences and everyday life. This study is based on text analysis and interviews with physicians and engineers. The characteristic of this study is that processes are described and interpreted through a longitudinal design. The theoretical framework is built up by three interrelated themes: knowledge and dynamics in contemporary society; higher education and work; the reflexivity of the individuals. An overarching interpretive approach is applied, and the concepts of flexibility, stability and ambivalence are used dialectically in the analysis of empirical data. The study indicates interplay between subjectivity, everyday life experiences and conditions in different practices. The informants’ educational and career choice can be understood as expressions of reflexive life-projects or as subjective dynamics. Becoming an engineer or physician stand out as substantially different processes. The engineers in information technology are becoming generalists and are “playing the game with a safe hand”, while the physicians becoming characters and are “playing the game with oneself as stake”. At work the engineers are using their title as a flexible strategy – identification is confined to place of work, occupation and working hours. The physicians’ identification with their profession is a fixed state of mind – they are always physicians, even in their leisure time – the profession is associated with their personality. The results indicate that both engineers and physicians careers can be characterised by life-long qualification. It appears as a strongly excluding factor. The relationship between higher education and work is discussed as life-trajectories and in terms of formable and sustainable life.

The focus of this thesis is on describing and analysing recently graduated physicians’ and engineers’ experiences of the relationship between the professional education programs and the respective professional practices. The aim is to explore the professionals’ reasons for their educational and career choices, what they learn in professional education, the demands they encounter in the workplace, and the perceived needs and opportunities for learning and further development in their professional practices. This study is based on a comparative design and the empirical data have been collected in interviews with physicians and master’s level engineers in information technology. The theoretical framework is structured around three parts, consisting of theories of professionalisation, theories concerned with the functions of higher education, and theories concerned with the concepts of knowledge, competence and qualifications. There is a close relationship between the process of professionalisation, the authority of the professions, the legitimacy of professional knowledge, and the higher education institutions. The results indicate that theory and practice are intimately integrated in the physicians’ professional education, whereas the engineers’ experiences of the educational program are characterised by little overlap between theory and practice. Furthermore, the physicians emphasise the importance of theoretical specialist knowledge and socio-communicative competence while the engineers instead stress the importance of generalist competence. The educational knowledge base is relatively static for both physicians and engineers. However, whereas there is a correspondence between the educational and the professional knowledge base in the case of the physicians they are only a loosely coupled in the case of the engineers. This can be attributed to the changing nature of the engineers’ professional knowledge base, which is characterised by constant change. The physicians regard their professional education as a rational preparation for the world of work. Although education does provide a general foundation for further professional development and learning, the engineers associate their professional education more with a symbolic ritual. For physicians, the formal credentials are a legal requirement to practise the profession. Education is regarded as constituting an important credential also for the engineers as it increases individual employability. The physicians tend to emphasise the use value of the educational program, while the engineers instead stress the exchange value of their educational program.

The aim of this study is to gain understanding of students’ experiences of assessment and the study strategies they adopt in the context of Higher Education in Rwanda. The study is governed by questions on how students conceive their experiences with assessment in their courses, how they determine study strategies, and how they reflect on alternative ways of assessment. The theoretical framework is based on socio-cultural approaches and on earlier research on assessment and theories of learning. The participants were drawn from third year and former geography students in two tertiary institutions. A four panel-wave design guided the data collection: a survey, focus groups, a follow-up questionnaire and individual interviews. The findings show that the majority of the students conceived assessment as course lecturers’ ways of collecting evidence from students to be used as benchmarks for grading, ranking and promotion at course level and for monitoring and controlling both students and teachers. Assessment was usually summative and could be both course-oriented in line with the curriculum and teacher-oriented in line with teachers’ course-notes. Moreover, the findings reveal that students rely heavily on senior students’ information about teachers’ styles of assessing, as a source for adopting study strategies. The participants experienced that learning took place under contextual pressure, which created fear for repetition or even expulsion. However, the students responded to this by adopting a combination of individual work and group work strategies. In contrast to the experienced modes of summative assessment, the participants had visions about formative assessment such as authentic and problem-solving assessment, and self- and peer- assessment, which they suggest could be employed as integral parts of the teaching and learning process. This is discussed in terms of assessment for learning as a cycle of events or as assessment of learning at the end of a course. / Syftet med denna avhandling är att söka förståelse för studenters erfarenheter av bedömning och vilka studiestrategier de använder sig av inom högre utbildning i Rwanda. Studien vägleds av frågor om hur studenter upplever sina erfarenheter av bedömning i sina kurser, hur de bestämmer studie strategier och hur de reflekterar över alternativa bedömningssätt. Det teoretiska ramverket har sin grund i sociokulturell teori och tidigare forskning om bedömning och lärande. I datainsamlingen deltog studenter från två olika institutioner för högre utbildning inom ämnesområdet geografi, dels under deras tredje studieår, dels en tid efter det att de var nyexaminerade. Insamlingen pågick under fyra perioder och började med en enkät. Därpå följde samtal i fokusgrupper och en uppföljningsenkät med öppna frågor. Studien avslutades med intervjuer med en mindre grupp efter deras examen. Resultaten visar att majoriteten av studenterna uppfattade bedömningen som lektorernas sätt att samla bevis att användas som underlag för systematisk mätning av studenternas resultat och för att kunna rangordna dem. De användes även som underlag för uppflyttning till nästa kursnivå och för att kontrollera att kursen genomförts. Bedömningen var oftast summativ och kunde vara både kursorienterad och följa målen i kursplanen och lärarorienterad där målen var de som angavs i lärarens kurskompendier. Resultaten visar att när studenterna ska välja studiestrategi förlitar de sig i hög grad på information från tidigare studenters uppfattningar om lärares sätt att ställa frågor. Deltagarna uppfattade att lärandet skedde under press från omgivningen vilket skapade rädsla för att de skulle behöva repetera kursen eller bli relegerade om de inte blev godkända. Studenterna hanterade sin oro genom att använda sig av en kombination av individuellt arbete och grupparbete. När de redovisade sina visioner om bedömning föreslog de att formativa bedömningssätt skulle användas som integrerade delar av lärandeprocessen och gav exempel som autentisk bedömning, självvärdering och bedömning av en kamrat. Detta diskuteras i termer av bedömning för lärande under en pågående kurs eller bedömning av lärande i slutet av en kurs.

The aim of this thesis is to describe Political Science students’ experiences of studies and work life. Students’ reflections on their study situation as well as their envisaged and later experienced work life have been analysed through cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data. Central research questions are how students at the beginning and the end of their studies perceive their study program, how the communication patterns between teacher and students are negotiated, and what discourses of knowledge and competence operate in the program and in work life as well as how students of Political Science experience the transition from higher education to working life at two Euro-pean universities, and how Political science students and students in two professional programmes experience the transition from higher education to work life. The empiri-cal studies are presented in four articles. Ethnography, phenomenography and dis-course analysis have been applied. The results show that students embark on the pro-gram with dreams of being in the halls of power in Brussels or becoming famous by appearing in the media. They are, however, also driven by a Bildung incentive. Towards the end of their studies, more down-to-earth visions of the future as investigators have replaced their previous dreams. Another result is the ongoing negotiations about their role and the purpose of e.g. seminars, which convey double messages about what to say and when to contribute. They also report a rational and generic relationship between their studies and the work tasks, indicating that they have acquired a set of general skills that are helpful for them in their work. When moving from studies into work life, they report having a feeling of being squeezed between the politicians and the general public. Surprisingly, few of them regard themselves as having power in the decision-making arena. Keywords: Higher education, Work life, Trajectories of learning, National comparisons, / Syftet med avhandlingen är att beskriva studenter inom statsvetenskap och deras resa genom akademin ut i arbetslivet. Genom att undersöka studenternas reflektioner och tankar kring sin studiesituation och hur de ser på sitt kommande arbete genom att an-vända en undersökningsdesign som består av en tvärsnittsstudie och en longitudinell studie. Med utgångspunkt i syftet har ett antal forskningsfrågor formulerats; Hur upp-fattas utbildningen av studenter i början och slutet av sina studier? Vilka diskurser kring kunskap och kompetens återfinns i studieprogrammen? Vilka diskurser kring kunskap och kompetens återfinns i arbetslivet? Hur upplever studenter i statsveten-skap vid två europeiska universitet övergången mellan akademi och arbetsliv? Hur upp-lever studenter i statsvetenskap och studenter från två professionsutbildningar över-gången mellan akademi och arbetsliv? De empiriska studierna rapporteras i fyra upp-satser. Etnografi, fenomenografi och diskursanalys är de metoder som använts vid ana-lyserna av empiriska data. Många studenter väljer att läsa statsvetenskap på grund av ett allmän- bildningsin-tresse, de uttrycker också drömmen om att få arbeta i maktens korridorer eller bli kän-da som experter i media. I slutet av sin utbildning infinner sig snarare en bild av en framtida roll som utredare. Eftersom studier i statsvetenskap har en rationell karaktär med fokus på generiska färdigheter är detta inte särskilt förvånande. En grupp studen-ter som följdes under sina första fem veckor i en seminarieserie fick dubbla signaler rörande sin roll vid seminarier. Relationen mellan utbildning och arbete beskrivs som i första hand rationell och generisk, dvs de har förvärvat allmänna färdigheter som är dem till stor hjälp i arbetet. När de som nya på arbetsmarknaden talar om sin identitet, framgår att de beskriver sig som klämda från två håll i sin roll som förmedlare mellan allmänheten och makthavarna. Förvånansvärt få anser att de har någon reell makt när det gäller beslutsfattande. Nyckelord: Högre utbildning, arbetsliv, lärande, identitet, nationella jämförelser, inter-nationella jämförelser, nybörjare, erfarna studenter, professionella noviser.

This master’s thesis aims to explore the practice of becoming a researcher and the learning process embedded in this activity by looking at the communicative practices of PhD students, within the context of academic publishing. It is likely that the way in which these soon-to-be researchers reason about the task of communication is related to their way of approaching their field of research as well as the lived world, which makes it relevant to explore further. The study was performed based two sets of data, first open-ended semi-structured interviews with eleven PhD students at Stockholm University, where they talk about their current situation, their motivations and goals and about how they plan to publish their dissertation. Secondly, an analysis of data about publications focusing on work by PhD students at Stockholm University between 2013–2016, and information about how the intended audience, i.e. the readers, have interacted with the published material. These two sets of data were analysed with the use of theories about personal epistemology, sociocultural learning and the rationality of actions. The study shows that the majority of the PhD students at Stockholm University publishes their research findings as scholarly articles in English. The conclusion is also that the publishing process can be understood as a pedagogical tool, as it provides a vehicle for the PhD students to immerse themselves in their community of practice. These findings suggest that it could be useful to further emphasise the publishing activity as a learning process that may lead to a deeper understanding of the role of the researcher in society. / Den här masteruppsatsen avser att utforska hur doktorander lär sig sitt framtida yrke, och hur de socialiseras till att bli forskare via de kommunikativa praktiker som de ägnar sig åt, dvs. akademisk publicering. Dessa kommunikativa praktiker torde vara kopplade till hur en forskare relaterar till sitt forskningsfält, men också sin omvärld, och företeelsen är därför intressant att ytterligare belysa. Studien är genomförd i två delar. Den första delen består av intervjumaterial från samtal med 11 doktorander vid Stockholms universitet. Den andra delen består av en analys av statistik om elektroniska publikationer av doktorander vid Stockholms universitet under perioden 2013–2016. Publikationerna sätts sedan i relation till data om hur läsekretsen har interagerat med publikationerna via olika media och citeringar. De två dataseten analyseras med hjälp av teorier om personlig epistemologi, sociokulturellt lärande och handlingsrationalitet. Slutsatserna är att de flesta doktorander vid Stockholms universitet väljer att publicera sig i vetenskapliga tidskrifter på engelska, och att dessa kommunikativa praktiker kan förstås som ett pedagogiskt verktyg när det gäller lärande om och förståelse för doktorandernas kontext eller gemenskap. Resultatet av studien indikerar att det kan vara meningsfullt att fokusera på publicering, eller liknande kommunikativa praktiker, som en användbar lärandeprocess när det gäller att förstå mer om forskarens roll i samhället.